1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed broadly relates to the field of containers for waste, and more particularly relates to the field of containers for waste storage, waste transportation and waste treatment for hazardous waste.
2. Description of the Related Art
Waste that may be dangerous to the environment is called hazardous waste. The term environment broadly refers to all life including plants, animals, and humans that may be harmed by hazardous waste. Government regulation from local, state and federal governments for the safe handling of hazardous waste continues to grow. Companies must respond to these increasing government regulations. One type of hazardous waste is known as biohazardous waste. Biohazardous waste is waste from hospitals, medical clinics, medical laboratories and a other medical facilities that includes infectious waste, chemotherapeutic waste and pathological waste comprising used needles, used bandages and used dressings, used medical devices, human fluids and human tissues. One method medical facilities dispose of biohazardous waste is to segregate the waste by placing it into red plastic bags. Red is a common color in the medical industry to signify biohazardous waste. Red plastic bag sizes are available from 2 gallons sizes up through 20 gallons sizes. Biohazardous waste many times is not only infectious with viruses such as hepatitis or the AIDS, but is often times in containers such as needles and bottles with sharp edges that tend to puncture the red plastic bags.
The red plastic bags are collected at medical facilities from specialized containers and thrown into a speciality marked dumpster. These dumpsters, called roll-off containers are typically 8 foot wide, 22 feet long with a top cover and have a capacity of 38-cubic yards to 40-cubic yards. The roll-off container may have a side door and rear door to enable medical facility staff throw-away the collected red plastic bags. A specifically designed truck picks up the roll-off container and brings the roll-off container when filled to a biohazardous waste processing facility. The roll-off container is dumped at the biohazardous waste processing facility. The red plastic bags are gathered using a combination of manual and automated separation. This process of gathering the red plastic bags at the treatment facility although efficient, is not without its shortcomings.
One shortcoming is that the individual red plastic bags are subject to breaking and exposing their content because of the extensive handling. The extensive handling includes the process of throwing or dumping the individual bags into the roll-off. The red plastic bags are subjected to the process of trucking to the waste treatment plant. The trucking process causes shifting, vibration and compaction of the red plastic bags under other bags. Because of this extensive handling, it is common for a broken red plastic bags to break and spill their hazardous contents into the roll-off container. A broken bag which exposes the biohazardous waste to employees and staff of the waste treatment facility is dangerous. Accordingly, a need exists to provide a container that greatly reduces and perhaps even eliminates completely the exposure of biohazardous contents of plastic bags that may have broke and spilled their contents prior to being processed at the a biohazardous processing plant.
Another shortcomings with the use of roll-off containers is the need to repack the biohazardous waste into containers for waste processing. There are several different types of treatment of biohazardous waste. One treatment is called autoclaving, where the biohazardous contents of the plastic bags are treated with heat such as steam at temperatures up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The contents of the roll-off container which is composed of plastic bags still in tact, (i.e, not broken) and broken or punctured plastic bags that have their biohazardous contents exposed. These broken bags, their contents and non-broken bags are places into treatment containers. For the treatment process of autoclaving, speciality designed leak-proof steel containers are used. Other processes for the treatment of biohazardous waste includes microwaving and chemical treatments. The type of treatment container for processing the biohazardous material for one process, for example steel autoclaving containers, may not be appropriate to another process such as microwave treatment. The type of processing is therefore somewhat treatment container specific. Accordingly, a need exists to provide a container that can be customized to the type of biohazardous treatment being performed at a waste treatment plant without exposing personnel to the hazardous waste.
Still, another shortcoming with the use of roll-off containers is the difficultly in the storage and transportation of roll-offs. Many counties, states and even governments are shipping waste to be process to different localities. Extending the concept used in the cargo shipping arena, containerized shipping has been used for waste. Containerized shipping uses a standardized container, typically the size of a trailer on a tractor trailer truck, that can moved with a lift or crane from a truck, to a train, to a plane or into a ship. Containerized shipping has greatly reduced the cost of having to unpack and repack goods from one transportation system to another transportation system. In addition, containerized shipping has enable shipping containers to be vertically stacked during transport or storage. The use Sea-Land type containers for transporting and storing hazardous wastes is useful but the problem of having the contents of plastic bags burst open in these containers is identical as in the roll-offs containers described above. The roll-off containers today, have slope roofs that do not allow stacking of the containers. Accordingly, a needs exists for a container that can hold hazardous materials, which can be stacked and moved around from one transportation system to another transportation system like Sea-Land containers without exposing personnel to the hazardous contents of plastic bags.